The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya...

As when a man smashes a jar having previously formed the intention of doing so.

I.e. the insensible continual decay of things.—Viparîta iti pratikshanam ghatâdînâm yuktyâ sâdhyamânokusalair avagantum asakyah sûkshmo vinâsopratisamkhyânirodhah. Brahmâv.

A series of momentary existences constituting a chain of causes and effects can never be entirely stopped; for the last momentary existence must be supposed either to produce its effect or not to produce it. In the former case the series is continued; the latter alternative would imply that the last link does not really exist, since the Bauddhas define the sattâ of a thing as its causal efficiency (cp. Sarvadarsanasamgraha). And the non-existence of the last link would retrogressively lead to the non-existence of the whole series.

Thus clay is recognised as such whether it appears in the form of a jar, or of the potsherds into which the jar is broken, or of the powder into which the potsherds are ground.—Analogously we infer that even things which seem to vanish altogether, such as a drop of water which has fallen on heated iron, yet continue to exist in some form.

The knowledge that everything is transitory, pain, &c.

What does enable us to declare that there is âvaranâbhâva in one place and not in another? Space; which therefore is something real.

If the cause were able, without having undergone any change, to produce effects, it would at the same moment produce all the effects of which it is capable.—Cp. on this point the Sarvadarsanasamgraha.

This is added to obviate the remark that it is not a general rule that effects are of the same nature as their causes, and that therefore, after all, existent things may spring from non-existence.

According to the vijñânavâdin the cognition specialised by its various contents, such as, for instance, the idea of blue colour is the object of knowledge; the cognition in so far as it is consciousness (avabhâsa) is the result of knowledge; the cognition in so far as it is power is mâna, knowledge; in so far as it is the abode of that power it is pramâtri, knowing subject.

If they are said to be different from the atoms they can no longer be considered as composed of atoms; if they are non-different from atoms they cannot be the cause of the mental representations of gross non-atomic bodies.

Avayavâvayavirûpo vâhyosrtho nâsti ken mâ bhûd jâtivyaktyâdirûpas tu syâd ity âsrankyâha evam iti. Jâtyâdînâm vyaktyâdînâm kâtyantabhinnatve svâtantryaprasa@ngâd atyantâbhinnatve tadvadevâtadbhâvâd bhinnâbhinnatvasya viruddhatvâd avayavâvayavibhedavaj gâtivyaktyâdibhedosxpi nâstîty arthah.

Vâsanâ, above translated by mental impression, strictly means any member of the infinite series of ideas which precedes the present actual idea.

For all these doctrines depend on the comparison of ideas which is not possible unless there be a permanent knowing subject in addition to the transitory ideas.

The vijñânaskandha comprises vijñânas of two different kinds, the âlayavijñâna and the pravrittivijñâna. The âlayavijñâna comprises the series of cognitions or ideas which refer to the ego; the pravrittivijñâna comprises those ideas which refer to apparently external objects, such as colour and the like. The ideas of the latter class are due to the mental impressions left by the antecedent ideas of the former class.

Viz. in the present case the principle that what presents itself to consciousness is not non-existent.

Soul and non-soul are the enjoying souls and the objects of their enjoyment; âsrava is the forward movement of the senses towards their objects; samvara is the restraint of the activity of the senses; nirjara is self-mortification by which sin is destroyed; the works constitute bondage; and release is the ascending of the soul, after bondage has ceased, to the highest regions.—For the details, see Professor Cowell's translation of the Ârhata chapter of the Sarvadarsanasamgraha.

Cp. translation of Sarvadarsanasamgraha, p. 59.

And so impugn the doctrine of the one eternal Brahman.

Cp. Sarvadarsanasamgraha translation, p. 58.

The inference being that the initial and intervening sizes of the soul must be permanent because they are sizes of the soul, like its final size.

The special nature of the connexion between the Lord and the pradhâna and the souls cannot be ascertained from the world considered as the effect of the pradhâna acted upon by the Lord; for that the world is the effect of the pradhâna is a point which the Vedântins do not accept as proved.

I.e. a high one, but not an indefinite one; since the omniscient Lord knows its measure.